Business
Business consultancy pursues initiative to raise Malawi entrepreneurs
May 09, 2020 / Bester Kayaye
Business consulting firm, Project Innovation Center (PIC), says it is eyeing to raise 1 Million Entrepreneurs by 2025 through a project dubbed “Ending Self Engineered poverty”.
During the 5-year project which started in November last year, PIC is targeting Innovators and Entrepreneurs in Health, Information and Communication Technology, Agribusiness, Energy and Tourism sectors, and among other interventions the center is providing free business coaching.
Speaking in an interview with Mining and Trade Review, PIC CEO Kondwani Kachamba explained that the main objective of the initiative is to woo many young people to embrace entrepreneurship and innovation as tools for transformation and the firm is working in coordination with Malawi’s Credit Data and Africa Development Bank (AfDB) in the initiative.
Kachamba said; “The role of PIC is to identify and train aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators, polishing their ideas into Bankable business plans, and we link them to AfDB for funding (AfDB), and through AfDB entrepreneurs can access loans ranging from K15-Million to K200- million, whilst for those in tourism sector the sum goes up to K250-million.”
“As for Credit Data, its main role is to track applicants and ensuring that the beneficiaries are servicing their loans.”
Kachamba also said that mainly the center is focusing on participants with life changing ideas in the aforementioned sectors including software development in ICT and Value Addition in Agribusiness, which are essential for Malawi’s economic growth.
In the meantime, the firm has 143-thousand entrepreneurs in one network, who have been roped into the project for the past 5-months.
“Being a 5-year project, we shall conduct a postmortem once this tenure elapses, where among others we shall analyse pros and cons of the program, and from there we shall see if there will be a need to continue with the program or to change the criteria,” he said.
However, Kwachamba lamented over government’s restrictions on public gatherings as a containment measure against Covid-19 pandemic saying they have affected their operations which involve live meetings.
“Previously we used to conduct our business trainings in public places such as Amyrlls Hotel in Blantyre but due to the pandemic, we have channeled these trainings to online sessions thus excluding entrepreneurs with no access to Internet.”
Recently, the firm partnered with Women Lawyers Association in an effort to bridge the gap between women entrepreneurs and the legal experts in the country.
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The establishment of a stable and self-sustaining ecosystem, but not necessarily the one that existed before mining began. In many cases, complete restoration may be impossible, but successful remediation, reclamation, and rehabilitation can result in the timely establishment of a functional ecosystem.
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Remediation:
The cleanup of the contaminated area to safe levels by removing or isolating contaminants. At mine sites, remediation often consists of isolating contaminated material in pre-existing tailings storage facilities, capping tailings and waste rock stockpiles with clean topsoil, and collecting and treating any contaminated mine water if necessary.
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